BASSEY IKPI

Malaak Compton-Rock

THOMAS CHATTERTON WILLIAMS

MyBrownBaby is a weekly blog that provides thought-provoking, insightful, wickedly funny commentary on motherhood, for moms who love their brown babies, by moms who do the same.
Through their posts, our MyBrownBaby bloggers lift the voices of African-American moms looking for the 411/advice/a high-five on everything from pregnancy and childrearing to sex, work, and relationships—all filtered through the lens of the African American experience.

Wednesday, December 3, 2008

MBB Contest: For Kiddies Who Love To Lunch

Okay, seriously? I’m so addicted to giving away fabulous gifts on MyBrownBaby. I love introducing my blog friends to fantastic goodies produced by some of my favorite authors, designers, and boutiques, and today I have another sweet treat up my cyber-sleeve. This one comes from the uber cutie Che' Demi's Boutique, an upscale, special occasion store that has some of the most adorable baby clothes, gifts, bedding, décor and nursery furniture I’ve ever seen. Seriously? I want one of everything!

I met Che Demi’s owner, LaTonya Yvette, over on the Mom Bloggers Club, and the connection was instant. She won me over with her Sunday Piece of Cake. (I’m easy like that—bring sugar, I love you long time.) Sunday Piece of Cake is a weekly feature on the boutique’s blog that serves up inspirational stories and recipes for perfectly decadent delicacies like peanut butter cup cheesecake, strawberry shortcake and my personal kryptonite, coconut cake.

When she’s not using her recipes to win over friends and influence people addicted to sweet treats, LaTonya, a mom of two beautiful daughters, is running her posh boutique and introducing her customers to, well, more sweet treats—like this Pink Poodle Lunchbox. It is, perhaps, the coolest lunch box on the planet; it’s a hip, fresh, remix on an ol’ school metal lunchbox—colorful and fly, but lead free, food safe, and water-resistant. It’s like a Bentley for peanut butter and jelly sandwiches.

The lucky winner of this MyBrownBaby contest will get to choose one out of eleven of Che Demi’s lunchbox designs for a special little one; LaTonya will also personalize it for you and deliver it in time for Christmas.

Oh, you know you want this!

Here’s how you get your chance to win: Visit Che Demi’s Boutique then come back to MyBrownBaby and leave a comment about something you’d buy in a heartbeat by 11:59 p.m. EST on December 7, 2008.

Want to enter more than once? Boost your chances of winning by completing one or more tasks on this list:

If you haven’t already, sign up for MyBrownBaby’s email updates by 11:59 p.m. EST on Sunday, December 7, 2008. To be eligible, you must verify your email subscription when Feedburner sends you a verification email. Your entry will be invalid if you do not verify. If you would prefer to get MyBrownBaby updates via an MBB RSS feed, please leave a comment letting me know you’ve done so, and include an email address, as RSS subscribers are anonymous.

Buy one or more items on Che Demi’s site, and email a copy of your confirmation order to mybrownbabycontests@gmail.com.

Blog about MyBrownBaby and post a link to your blog entry here.

Fave MyBrownBaby on Technorati. After you do this, come back to MyBrownBaby to leave a comment with your Technorati user name so that I can verify it.

See? That means each of you can receive up to 5 entries. A winner will be chosen via Random.org, and contacted via email. This contest is available to U.S. mailing addresses only.

And finally, drum roll, please! The winner of the fantastic gift-pack of autographed books from the fabulous children’s book authors Andrea and Brian Pinkney, offered in last week’s MyBrownBaby contest, is… Angie from The Arthur Clan! Angie is an absolute sweetie, and takes some of the best photos ever. Maybe she’ll send me a picture of her kiddies enjoying their new reads. Enjoy, Angie!

16 comments:

i am so in love with the monogram stuff. i could just eat it all. it's my first time here...renee suggested i visit...and she's right! this is fab! love it! and as i comment, i get to see bon bons...what more could a lady ask for??

I am having a complete heart attack right now...I cannot believe that I won your awesome giveaway!! I am seriously ready to start dancing on my table right now! I am going to have to find some way to thank you for that one Denene.

I also met LaTonya on Mom Bloggers Club and she is one amazing woman. Her boutique is fantastic as well! With my photography obsession, my favorite item on her website would have to be her adorable picture frames. Each one is so unique and beautiful.

Just found your blog, cool and interesting stuff. I've got a question for you. I just purchased Disney's "Song of the South" the movie with Uncle Remus singing zip a dee doo dah. I had to buy it from China since it is not sold here because they say it is racist. I watched it with little kids the other night and they loved it. Have you ever seen it and what are your thoughts? I was going to give them out as Christmas gifts but don't want to insult my African American friends.You said speak my mind, so there ya go. Look forward to your thoughts.

Gotta love a good giveaway =). That lunch box is super cute!! I can just see it now, with a big ole "J" on the front, swinging back and fourth in the clutches of a little brown hand, lol.

I gotta say that I love the T-shirts over at Che Demi. Miss J and I love shirts that say cute/crazy/out of line/adorable/etc phrases. I would most definitely snatch up the Kindergarten Rocks tee and the Sassy tee too =)

Please, I beg of you, DO NOT give copies of Song of the South to ANY of your friends, no matter the color. Though I've never seen the movie, I do know about its history; it's nothing more than a piece of Old South propaganda that portrayed slaves as all-too-happy with their wonderful circumstances, which, of course, flies in the face of what REALLY went down on the plantation.

Ironically, I'm in the middle of writing a piece on an African American starlet who made inroads and broke the rules in Hollywood, and I've been studying her career, which means that I have, sitting right here next to my bed, a bunch of books about the film industry. Many of them are written by the brilliant Donald Bogle, a professor who has spent his career studying such things, and in his book "Toms, Coons, Mulattoes, Mammies & Bucks, he describes "Song of the South" this way:

"Stylistically, Song of the South was a great novelty. It was a live-action spectacle with clever animated sequences interspersed throughout. But its theme, that of the pastoral Old South, was familiar terrain. It took place on an Atlanta plantation where contented servants toiled joyously in magnificently photographed Technicolor work fields. Hattie McDaniel was the family mammy. James Baskette portrayed dear old Uncle Remus, a character glowing with sunshine and joy. In his spare time, Uncle Remus sings as animated bluebirds and butterflies whiz past. And his greates delight is telling wondrous stories to the dear little white mass. Everything's just zip-a-dee-doo-dah."

Bogle goes on to note that various black organizations, including the NAACP, protested the movie for distorting slave life.

Now, it's nice that your kids enjoyed the movie and you did, too, but really, you can't divorce all of the patronizing, demeaning messages in the film from the pretty pictures and songs. I suspect that your black friends would have a REALLY hard time looking past those aspects to get anything out of it, except perhaps to wonder why in the hell YOU would give something like that to them as a gift.

Surely with all the fabulous children's movies made in the last 30 years you can find SOMETHING equally cute and endearing without having to reach back and find a movie that glorifies slavery. May I suggest you do your part by giving them a copy of Akeelah and the Bee? Cute movie, great messages, and nobody will try to slap you with the box after they rip off the wrapping paper.

I hope this helps you make an informed decision, and thank you for trusting me enough to ask.